The Life-history of Radium

Abstract

EVIDENCE of a convincing nature is rapidly accumulating to the effect that helium may be produced as a result of the disintegration of the radium atom. On the other hand, it has been suggested by Rutherford and others that radium is analogous to the first products of the disintegration of uranium and thorium—to the substances known as uranium X and thorium X—rather than to those elements themselves. Such an idea points to a search for the parent atom, by the dissolution of which radium is formed.